The Big Picture

Don’t worry. It will all be over soon…

Yes, but not soon enough!

And in the meantime, the irreparable damage goes on and on.

Damage that is not reported on by a toadying media more concerned about not being controversial than responsible!
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Damage that will impact our lives and the lives of our children for eons to come.

All thanks to the usurper of our freedoms, the “Compassionate Conservative” run amok in a climate permissive, a climate that surrenders to bullying tactics.
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Now, the talk is of an attack on Iran.

It is hinted at, alluded to, and reported on from a million different perspectives.

The president talks of it.

There are people there, like the Iraqis, who want to build bombs to wipe us out.

The Iranians want to push us out of not only Iraq but the whole Middle East.

And they have WMD or are building them…

Does that sound familiar?



Yes, we can attack Iran.

That’s no big deal. After all, we’ve poured hundreds of billions of dollars building the biggest military arsenals in the world. Where does it get you, if you don’t use it?

But shouldn’t that be decided by the people represented by their Congress?

Don’t we belong to a participatory government that is supposed to represent the wishes of the people?

Ha!.

Ask yourself, why have we forfeited the rights to make War to a War Maker—someone who seems to find that war is clean and pure and the pure expression of his character. It’s mano a mano and it’s a lot easier to do than to have to explain yourself.

No, folks, we are in the time of physicality. Forget about words; forget about achieving harmony.

That’s not in the cards in the first half of the twenty first century.

We are a war-like culture….and we don’t want to bother talking to those who could bring about peace.

Hell, no let’s bomb them into submission.

War is the true expression of our president’s character—even though he struts on a stage far removed from any notion of combat and let’s others do his dirty work.

Does he think he’s helping America?.

Or does that even enter into the equation of a natural born “tough” who sees fighting and war as a way of expressing one’s self, as a way to get even when one doesn’t have the words or the inclination to consider other measures that might find war unnecessary and an immature attempt to prance one’s virility on stage. Because Macho is everything!....

I'm sorry, gang, for coming on very strong on the issue of an Iran War. I hope that my enthusiasm for change did not put my friends off but in an administration that admires war, this is a big thing—a very big thing!

And it has me seriously worried. Anyone who has studied or analyzed the lead up to the War in Iraq would have to be similarly concerned. We are experiencing virtually the same thing.
Research considered only if it fits the desired pattern….and so we amble on on a path that is ruinous.

In the space of fifty or so years, we have gone from great ideas and imagination to a president who gropes to find expression and who’s only recourse seems to “get even” through the expedient of warfare. In a world of such complexity, harboring weapons that can annihilate the world in an instant, it is hard to imagine that the president, a graduate of one of our finest institutions, would find this the only tenable recourse. It does not say much about the process or how well we screen those who are to lead us and the rest of the world.

What I see happening to our freedoms, our country is deeply disturbing to me as it is to any thinking person. But I take umbrage at our feeble attempts to right the situation.



It has only fed my frustrations and probably make me sound like one of those people with picket signs reading “The World is Coming to an End!” although for the first time in my life, I would tend to agree that if nothing is done, that scenario increasingly becomes a more believable one.

I realize that it is disconcerting to hear the drumbeat of disharmony and discontent.

But I don’t know what else will change things over the short term.

And it is essential that we contemplate this over the short term if we are any hope of righting the ship that has already capsized, it seems…

But the tasks that face us are not only palpable, they are real and long term. And if our tentative solutions are not thoughtful and well-considered, we may find ourselves dealing with them for years to come. . What we do now, may impact what we are and what we become. So we must not be casual about any of the decisions we enter.

We must think long term whether it’s the environment, alternative energy, jobs and the economy and improvements to health care, education and the other concerns of a huge economy of 300 million people who are totally dependent on what a few in Washington decide.

To do these vitally important things, we have a man in place who puts a premium on loyalty over competence, of servitude over vision, a lacky kind of mentality over a capacity to do good, or even the right thing as adjuged by the majority of us….

And it shows. In spades.

Based upon our current experience, the outlook is not hopeful..

Viewed from a more immediate perspective and a personal one, as a grandpa who would love to see my grand-kids enjoy the kind of life and freedom that I’ve enjoyed, I see a need to fight with everything I can to retell the message a million times if need be, if that will serve to make our world a better place and guarantee our survival.

For me, with a few years left, I cannot afford to wait and let it pass—an idea that is fraught with wrong headed thinking.

Mainly, I ask what kind of legacy are we going to leave our children and our children’s children.

Will there be a world left for them? Will they enjoy the same opportunities we once knew?

I wonder.

It is not the people who are the problem. It is the cabal that runs the people mercilessly into the ground with little care or consideration. The “compassionate conservative” run amok has guaranteed that we must do all we can to reverse the trends that have begun. This is not the Congo; this is not Russia; we have the right to gather. We have the right to demand that our democratic values endure. We have a right to seek fairness. And we have a right to jobs and opportunity—something that this management-oriented cabal seems to have forgotten in its own selfish pursuits of profits for the filthy rich..

So, that’s what I’m about. If that is something you don’t want to hear about, tune out now…because I don’t intend to go away any time soon…. I will keep beating on this message.

In telling this story, one could almost begin chronologically beginning with 9/11 although it began with the loss of the election and the reasons for it, reasons that shook up my understanding of what a great society was all about. To me, it seemed the bloodless coup that would change the world.

Actually, as I see it, I was prophetically right but not in a good way.

Yes, we morphed into a changed world, a world for the rich and privileged few; a world that aimed to eliminate the Middle Class and those changes are now perking away in ways that we don’t always understand ranging from secret government energy deals to unprovoked wars to the NAU, the North American Union that would finally realize the idea of a great commercial enterprise that benefits business and industry and turns America into a great empty shell—but that is another story. I urge you to check it out yourselves.

The changes to our system, along with the intended changes, are perhaps more than most people can grasp.

And we are seeing it now with a failed mortgage program that because it was not monitored or regulated is causing people now to feel its catastrophic effect; moreover, despite what happened, our attempts at correcting the problems is just more of the same—a guarantee that it could happen again! God forbid.

First of all, we have seen for nearly eight years Bush come in and do precisely what he wants.

He has placed puppets and "gross incompetents" in serious jobs, sinecures where men with gravitas should reign and he does it seriously. We have incompetents at the level of the Justice Department. We have agencies that act as rubber stamps; that dare not anger the sitting president who has the thinnest of thin skins. We have a secretary of state who doesn’t want to be bothered doing diplomacy with people she doesn’t like. We have generals who when they differ with the president, automatically discover early retirement. We have press secretary who tries to make all the dissonance sound believable. And on and on. The people with good sense have gotten out!....Karl Rove, the architect of many of these crazed ideas and the neo-cons have already moved into their warrens underground. The Vice president runs around spouting his crazed talk and people take him seriously—because they know his influence on the Maniac in charge. The man who stood the course, who didn’t give in to common sense and logic.

Katrina was only a symptom of what can happen when you don't give a damn who does what in your administration only that the appointee has been loyal and a kiss up.


Well, that's not my definition of what makes good government.

For me, the compact that has bound man to his society and vice versa, was abrogated by this crew. I have no loyalty to them; only to my family. And others should feel likewise.
A government that feels no responsibility to its people should not be surprised if the people feel no obligation to its government.

If we can’t move this kind of a mentality out, we need to structure our own society or simply leave and go elsewhere where at least we can achieve a modicum of consideration.

Any Western nation looks appealing to me now…..

As one who has been around the block a few times, what this government was getting away with was mind boggling; yet nobody focused serious attention on the grievous failures that characterized its day to day activities and the concentration on running a government that showed an obvious preference for the few.

By the same token, there had been an astounding failure in reporting that forces me to go other English language papers to begin to piece together the continuing violations of not only our common sense but our freedoms…..

The media, now owned by ten organizations beyond rich as we would define it, who owned mainly assets that were dependent on maintaining a favorable position with this cabal, failed to report on anything going on. The news, as much as the purveyors of the pap might agree, is printed as seen fit at a time most convenient for the newsmakers. Today, even the concept of “news” is a misnomer; it has become more the vehicle for the newsmaker to control what he wants to say and when through the appropriate channels who simply reprint the information the way it is to flow to the public. Consequently, management and control of the news is a paramount priority of this administration.

This is not news, it is public relations and many schools now give courses in its use.

Aside from the perversion of the idea of untrammeled access to the facts, which seems inimical to a free society, those who violate the conditions set by the newsmaker suffer grievous responses—investigations of their books, problems getting licensed, a lack of access to key players who generate the news.. The doors just shut down on those trying to fulfill the notions of a free and unencumbered press so that it virtually does not exist anymore….

To put it succinctly, the government's check and balances no longer worked.

That was because TV necessitated "our representatives" getting into bed with the "bad guys," the guys who represented the people who sell drugs, armaments, health care services, insurance and the rest at outrageous profits and don’t think there’s anything wrong in fleecing the public if they can. There is no great concern for the public in our government, amongst our leadership, anywhere I can see. What seems to represent the people is a feeble discourse that seems more an obligation than telling the truth. No one, after all, wants to jeopardize their jobs and sacrifice their health care programs…..

Nor should we underestimate the power of the Military Industrial Complex as depicted in Winter kills or the Parallex View, as we warned by president Eisenhower so many years ago. If anything, this cancer on peace seems to grow without control, without oversight. Today, we spend more on armaments than all the rest of the world’s nations combined….

And where does it go?

Much of it eventually falls into the hands of the opposition to make sure that we always have to remain a step ahead forcing us into new investment. Why the hell else would we need an F22 Raptor when we have the F15 or the Super Hornet that is better than anything in the air? And why else would we have to pay ten times the price for each aircraft when the old ones still maintain air superiority and will do so for decades to come?.

And guess where our politico’s gathered? You guessed it on the side of big bucks….

Who suffered? You and me.

I see signs of it everywhere.

Instead of investing in new business and industry—instead of pushing for new technology, we funnel our resources into the existing ‘Robber Barons” who do the work off shore and gather the profits in corporations formed on islands where America has no tax authority.

The jobs flee overseas.

There is no work. The truth was that service oriented jobs, unconnected with big industry, are minimum wage, part time; they do not have the desired multiplier effect in the economy…

People on fixed wages barely get by. If they get hit with illness, it's virtually all over.

Welfare costs are insufficient for a family in today's sky high economy.

We have seen the jobs fly out the window, and, yes, I blame Clinton for starting this trend by passing NAFTA which makes no sense for Americans, only the bosses who profit hugely from our biggest policy mistake. NAFTA allows foreign countries to sue us for doing business with them and allows them to settle out of court enforcing settlements that penalize our country and there is no recourse under its provisions.

I am aggravated with a Congress who allows business to incorporate offshore and to pass legislation that makes it possible for the rich to get out of paying taxes altogether.

It is has forced us into an untenable model that supports government programs with the revenues of the middle class which is quickly evaporating.

I am troubled by a Congress that bends over and gives Bush the power to make treaties, allowing for a Fast Track, that allows Bush to trade government secrets for a business deal that allows us to market their fruit and produce.

Who keeps track of these absurdities?

I am troubled by a government that gives Bush carte blanche to destroy our environment.

We sit idly by as our trees die, as drilling rights destroy the great vistas of the West, while commercial fishing literally harvest the seas and leave nothing over for the future as the seas become depleted and deprive the poor of their sustenance…. We do nothing as Monarch butterflies die, the bees disappear and frogs are genetically mutated. And we think nothing of it; at least not enough to do anything.

What does it take to wake up?

This cabal and its architects of self-serving parasites has postponed our clean air and clean water OSHA agreements for another ten years which will allow for hundreds of thousands of new cases of illness and disease to keep our hospitals packed.

"And on and on.

I have busied myself trying to get the word out and getting involved in little good works but it seems that almost every day a new policy comes out that is aimed at further eviscerating the middle class.

We are deep in the middle of Global Warming and the government has done nothing to ameliorate the situation.

New Orleans is still deep into the demoralizing effects of Katrina, yet somehow the money promised the people has gone to the big developers to build luxury buildings and casinos in Mississippi.

Something is wrong and we have no elder statesman who stands up to tell the truth in all its unvarnished glory.

There are still some people who think we live in a democracy.

We don't. It has been a bloodless war that we have lost.

If you doubt that, just look at the free hand "Bush has had in Iraq to do whatever he liked.

We could have wiped out terrorism in the beginning; but not by sending in ten CIA operatives two months after the fact to get bin Laden.

The truth is that we didn't want to get bin Laden because he was the mechanism that allowed this government to eliminate our freedoms and maintain the pressures caused by fear.

Now, it's okay for them to read my personal mail and put me in jail on suspicion.

Do not we realize that nobody is safe under such circumstances? That we are all vulnerable..

That the government has already built isolation areas to keep us from stopping them under the pretense of “protecting the population.”

And this whole thing goes on and the only thing we can do is voice some mild commentary as we try to run a legitimate election against a cabal of those who would eat our gizzards if they could.

Our educational system is falling apart.

Our Constitution has lost its teeth.

We have become a nation who makes nothing!

More than sixty five billion dollars a month is our indebtedness to other nations--some of whom send us products to make us sick or kill us and they reap the profits.


The biggest supporter of terrorism is it turns out our great friend who shafts us on the price of oil then takes the profits and sends them to middle eastern troublemakers who would like to see us disappear off the face of the earth and we still can't muster the gumption to cut back on our gas guzzling.

We still underwrite an antimissile shield that doesn’t work to the tune of 140 billion dollars.

And we can still declare war on anyone we like.

Who’s next?

Sadly, we are looking more and more like pre war Germany.

And we used to wonder how such a thing could happen to any civilized country in the world.

Now we know.

Les Aaron